


Much That Hides

by greenapricot



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-03
Updated: 2005-11-03
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5199041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenapricot/pseuds/greenapricot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything always turns out all right for someone. River knows this. Things now are as close to all right as they’ve been in a long long time, but Simon doesn’t quite see it. Can’t see the stars for the black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Much That Hides

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2005. Title from a line in Saint Simon by The Shins.

Simon is worrying again. He always does. Worrying whether she is getting better, whether he’s given her the correct dosage, whether this is an illusion too, the calm before yet another storm. Whether everything will turn out all right in the end.

The end is relative. The end has no end.

Is she better now? Now that she hears less can she see more? Sometimes. Most times.

Everything always turns out all right for someone. River knows this. Things now are as close to all right as they’ve been in a long long time, but Simon doesn’t quite see it. Can’t see the stars for the black.

All right is relative, like time is relative out here. Without clocks set to arbitrary planet rotation the day, the night, would never end. You have to look past that, into that, through that. Mal can see it most of the time. He’s got a talent for it, looking through all that doesn’t actually matter, seeing what’s clear when nothing’s clear at all, pushing the rest away. Shot, chased by feds, swindled, nearly killed, can’t get too caught up in that. Not all the time. Still flying. That’s the bit that counts, that’s the bit to hold on to at the end of the arbitrary day.

When she tries to tell Simon he doesn’t understand, doesn’t listen, doesn’t grasp; his hand on her shoulder, comforting, calming. That’s what he thinks he’s doing, but you can’t comfort if you don’t know, can’t comfort if you won’t let yourself have comfort, if you can’t see. Simon’s hand is heavy like the cold windblown rain that doesn’t fall out here in the black. Heavy like storms she remembers from before, like thunder. One one thousand, two one thousand, getting closer. Heavy like the door sliding shut after they’d strapped her in. Hands of blue. Two by two. Artificial, manufactured.

That was then.

This is now.

She is now. Early taught her that. She taught herself that. Still learning.

Simon is watching, observing. Critical thinking, analysis, patient diagnosis. River watches Simon, watches his eyes slide along the corridor out the infirmary window. Following Kaylee – regret twisting like a bullet to the gut, a smile to cover it. Following Jayne – keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer, keep your eyes to yourself. Following Zoe – pieces added, pieces missing, carefully pieced together, nothing falls. Following Mal – inscrutable, immutable, unflappable, unmappable, protector, malefactor, contradictions equal the whole, things that shouldn’t mesh but do. Simon’s eyes follow River too. She can feel them, light but insistent, until she slides along herself, out of reach.

Out of reach in the stars. Out of reach of the stars.

Simon misses being within reach. River would gladly float away in the quiet, the quiet outside, all consuming. Consuming you if you open the door, your suit, your mouth. Eight point five seconds. The end. There are no screams in the black. Only pinpricks of light. Black is better than blue. Sky of black, never go back.

Simon’s mattress has become less comfortable. He spends nights prowling the infirmary, the kitchen, the corridor from engine room to bridge. River prowls after him, he doesn’t notice. No one notices her if she doesn’t want them to, she is the ship. Simon is listless, restless. No rest for the wicked, those thrown in with the wicked, those that think of themselves as wicked. Mal is awake too, he is also the ship. Simon doesn’t see Mal either, only what’s in his own head. It blocks out everything.

Simon’s not very perceptive, not to himself, not when his brain doesn’t want him to be. Doesn’t know what he sees, doesn’t think what he feels. Better that way maybe, ‘til he can see the stars, all of the stars.

“Fragile,” River whispers to herself watching Simon gaze into his late night tea, “like a flower four days picked,” she brings an imaginary stem to her lips, blows. “Petals lose their strength.” She opens her hands, flutters her fingers down toward him. “Loose on the wind. Have to let it go.”


End file.
